By Alma L. Tingcang
Background
The
town of Malangas, a coastal municipality in Zamboanga Sibugay province was
originally called “Kulaka”, a Subanen term for paddling. About two kilometers
from this place was a small waterfall, which was called “Malangas” meaning
“noisy” or “noisy brook” and that was how the place got its name.
In
the early part of the year 1900, Christians from Zamboanga City, the Chavacanos
began to migrate to this fertile and promising land in the Sibuguey Valley,
nestled by the rich fishing ground of DumanguillasBay.The vast coal deposits
attracted other people from Luzon, Visayas and other parts of Mindanao.
Malangas is located
on the north-west portion of Zamboanga Sibugay. It is bounded on the north by
the municipality of Diplahan, on the northwest by Imelda, on the northeast by
Buug, on the south-west by Alicia, and on the south by the beautiful
Dumanquillas Bay.
On July
23, 1951, by virtue of Republic Act 654, Malangas was created into a
municipality from a mere barrio of Margosatubig, comprising 25 barangays.
Coral Triangle Day
“AngKinabuhisaKadagatan,
KinabuhisaKatawhan.” (Life of the Ocean, Life of the People)
Thus said Mayor
Alfredo A. Atilano of Malangas, Zamboanga Sibugay on the celebration of the
Coral Triangle Day on June 9, 2015. He was awed by the overwhelming cooperation
of the different sectors in the community and thanked them for their
participation in the coastal clean-up activity.
“It is our goal to
bring to light the importance of oceans in people’s lives and the need to
protect them and to highlight the preservation of work being done by coral
triangle partners in the region to protect it. We also aim to provide aregional platform to promote national/local
marine conservation work in each coral triangle country,” the good mayor said.
Community support
People from all
walks of life came to support the clean-up drive including the local government
unit (LGU) officials and employees, Western Mindanao State University, Malangas
National High School, Malangas Elementary School, Malangas Institute,
Department of Education, Philippine National Police, Philippine Coastguard,
DSWD KALAHI-CIDSS and other concerned individuals.
Mayor
Atilano recalled that during the previous year, they conducted mangrove
planting in barangay Dansulao. “This year, weopted to do coastal clean-up and
gather all the garbage that we have collected and weigh them. This is one of the
strategies to help clean the ocean.”
All
garbage collected were weighed to measure the amount of trash gathered from the
coastal areas within one hour. Students were eager to do the work and
contribute to the preservation and protection of the environment.
Asimilar
activity was done simultaneously in Zamboanga Peninsula covering 6
municipalities namely :Lapuyan, Margosatubig, Vincenzo Sagun, and Kumalarang in
Zamboanga del Sur, Buug and Malangas in ZambongaSibugay.
“If
the ocean is clean, then we will have abundant supply of fishes and other
marine resources while if it is dirty and polluted, the fishes will die,”
Atilano quoted. The clean-up lasted for an hour, starting at 7:25 am and ending
at 8:25 a.m.
Coral
Triangle Initiative
Coral
Triangle Day activities include beach clean-ups, sustainable seafood dinners
and exhibitions, bazaars and beach parties, among others, all carrying the
message of ocean conservation under the overall banner of “shared waters,
shared solutions.”
The Coral Triangle is a geographical term so named as it refers to a roughly triangular area of the tropical marine waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste that contain at least 500 species of reef-building corals in each eco-region.
It
is also called the "Amazon of
the seas" and covers 5.7 million square kilometers of ocean
waters. Its biological resources sustain the lives of over 120 million
people.
The
Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food
Security was launched in 2007 as a
multilateral partnership of the governments of the 6 countries.
It
recognizes the need to safeguard the coastal and marine resources of the seas
that surround these countries, which together constitute a uniquely diverse and
economically important region.
